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And the winner is…

Much to my surprise, the results of the survey I took for the general election have opened up a once faint interest in politics. At the very least, I think I owe it to myself to find out what the parties behind all these policies are really all about. But it also got me thinking. What if there are potential voters that haven’t stumbled upon sites like Vote for Policies?

I decided to conduct an experiment that goes along with the apparent theme of this year’s election and give all parties a “fair” chance (well, except for the BNP). I don’t have loads of time to spend scouring the web so I allowed 5 minutes per site to see what first caught my eye. If I was still interested after 5 minutes, I would revisit the site later. If I started to feel lost or frustrated, due to lack of user-friendliness, I moved on to the next site.

The first thing I noticed with Ukip was the banner of Nigel Farage and “Take the battle to Buckingham.” I got sidetracked in wanting to find out what this battle was all about and ended up not learning more about the party’s policies. The Lib Dem site was equally distracting. Should I “say goodbye to broken promises” first or meet the Lib Dems? All these choices!

Now on to the Tories, Labour, and the Greens (which according to the survey should be my top pick). So that’s where I went next and was immediately put off by all the green glaring back at me from my screen. To borrow from the Greens, fair is definitely worth fighting for but not worth going blind over.

I was left with the Tories and Labour. Should I “vote for change” or choose “a future fair for all?” If I had to stick with my judging criteria, I would have to say that Labour’s site wins over the Tories.

From a completely non-political standpoint, I think Labour does the best job in drawing in undecided or first-time voters. Overall, Labour’s website is the most accessible. It’s clear, inviting, but most of all I find that the PEB’s on their site help create a longer lasting interest for someone who wants to learn more about politics. Sure, you could say that it’s all propaganda, but at least for me, it grabbed my attention and I spent the rest of the evening learning more about Labour’s policies.